THE HOLY SHIP REVIEW : DAY 3

We made it to the final day of our voyage. Our bodies have been bruised and battered from the intense intake of alcohol and violent dancing that occur the night before. As badly as I wanted to stay in bed the morning of the third day, I am infinitely thankful that I chose to get up. On the morning of the third day our ship had arrived at the private island for one last day of binge drinking and dancing. Now I regret this now, but I had no idea what to expect at the time, we unfortunately didn’t bring our iphones to this island. So instead of shitty iphone pictures I’m going to provide you with some profession quality photos from professional photographers. I would try to explain how awesome this private island was, but there is nothing that I can write that could describe what we saw, so I’ll just leave it to the pictures.

The person that took this picture was probably standing in the ocean at the time. That is how close the music was to the water.

We arrived on the island while Dave Nada on deck (literally on the deck of the pirate ship/dj booth). This private island beach party was pretty much a moombahton lovers paradise. With the moombahton pioneer on the 1’s and 2’s we were in good company and I cannot begin to name the number or names of the awesome tracks he played out. Dave is an incredible person, I was lucky enough to meet him and have a few words with him. He is a very humble and genuinely nice person that knows how to throw an awesome party. I recommend seeing him or Nadastrom live in the near future.

Dillon Francis was next up on the poop deck, and we were probably six to seven fruity island drinks deep before it was even noon. With that strong buzz we pulled up a couple lawn-chairs right in front of the beached pirate ship and soaked it all in. Mr. Francis played all of his tunes from “I.D.G.A.F.O.S.” to “Who is Ready To Jump (DF remix)” to one of my personal favorites, “She Blows (DF remix)”. As more and more people got word of the epicness of the party on the beach, the sand and ocean started to fill with more intoxicated people.

Diplo was next up; the party was really getting started, girls were running around with just pasties on, australians were getting into trouble in international waters, and people were sneaking off into the private island to see what they could find. At this point I paused the binge drinking to go out into the water. We drunkenly made our way through crystal clear water to about shoulder deep water. At this point Diplo was playing out his hit “Pon De Floor”, and I was floating on my back in the Caribbean waters. At this point I was 100% positive that we will never for get our time on that private island. It was fun in its purest form. Diplo also played out Zeds Dead’s new hit “Unda Yuh Skirt” and Bassnectar’s “Here We Go”.

The reigning champion from the night before, Fatboy Slim, had taken the decks atop the pirate ship bar. you might be asking if the above picture is photoshopped or what the fuck is going on. Well, the man behind Hard events had scheduled a helicopter fly-by to film for the offical HOLY SHIP video. So while everyone from the ship was dancing like complete idiots on the beach, the helicopter was flying over-head by only about 30 feet. All-in-all the beach experience was for sure our favorite part of the entire trip, everything about it was AWESOME.

BRODINSKI

The party continued the second we got back to the boat, and after seeing Gesaffelstein’s set the first night we knew we could not miss his bromance brother Brodinski’s set. Brodinski killed it in everyway possible. Playing out some of the best french house that we had seen since Busy P at Lollapalooza. Brodinski & Gesaffelstein have some big things coming to them in the near future, I would be on the look out for them if I were you. Below we have a preview of a HUGE new remix from Brodinski check it out and be sure to buy it up when it is released.

Holy Ship Surprise Party (JDEVIL/Alvin Risk/Dillon Francis/Photek)

After Brodinski’s main stage set we headed over to the theater to see who was playing for the night. After all it was a surprise, and we were both certainly surprised to see who was up first. Everyone by now probably knows that Korn has taken a step into the dubstep world. I still have no idea if this is a good or a bad thing, but with that being said Jonathon Davis from Korn aka JDevil, was the first surprise guest at the secret party. Just as we had expected Davis coming from a metal background was playing out some of the grimiest and filthiest dubstep I’ve ever heard. He would start behind the mixer prepping his next tune and then once the drop came, he could dance out to the front of the stage and rage with everyone in the crowd. An interesting set I must say, but there was still more to come. It definitely wasn’t what we would have expected had someone told us that “that guy from Korn” was playing, but we were glad we checked it out.

The up-and-coming Alvin Risk was next on the bill. I have been waiting to see Alvin live for almost a year now and he did not disappoint whatsoever. He appeared from behind the curtain with Steve Aoki at his side, who gave Alvin his absolute approval, and then the onslaught began. Alvin played out just about everything I wanted to hear from him. From his “Diminishing Returns” remix to Alvin’s “Eyes” remix to a bunch of brand new tunes I had never heard before. It seems that Alvin has something in the works this year, and I hope it’s an album.

It was pretty well-known about the ship that Rusko was to play the secret party, but unfortunately Rusko fell ill the third day of the trip. To replace him was none other than Sir Dillon Francis. He made it known from the beginning that he was taking Rusko’s place, and to make up for it, he played a solid 25 minutes of Drum & Bass I had never heard of. After this stint Dillon got back to his usual self, playing out his usual moombahton songs for the rest of the set. Maybe it was the theater or the crowd but to be honest I felt pretty underwhelmed by his set. Not that it was bad by any stretch of the imagination but it felt like something was missing from his set.

After Dillon Francis was a DJ named Photek. We had only heard the name Photek tossed around on different blogs before, but we didn’t really have any clue to what his set would be like. Photek came out and played a lot of good dubstep that we had never heard before. After a while we were getting a bit tired so we went back up to the mainstage to see Laidback Luke for the last 30 minutes of his set. Obviously, Luke killed it once again, and he put a very deserving cap on the main stage of Holy Ship. From here we went up to the disco to check out Zedd once again. This would be our last stop on the entire Holy Ship cruise. We went up to the disco, pushed to the very front row and gazed over the glass to watch Zedd along with Dillon Francis and Diplo pull out all the stops. Diplo climbed over the glass with a bottle of Jack and was handing out free shots to those that were still alive from Zedd’s musical beatdown.

After all was said and done, it was around four in the morning and we were dead tired from the three days of non-stop fun. All-in-all, Holy Ship was the greatest music festival/event I have ever been too, and I know that nearly everyone on the ship would say the same thing. This was seriously an experience unlike anything we had ever experienced or probably will ever experience again. It was nonstop fun from the preparty to getting off the ship. We were exhausted physically and mentally and seriously lived it up as much as we could. No matter how well we try to describe it through words, pictures and videos I still feel like we can’t truly get the point across of how great it was. It’s likely that Holy Ship will remain the ultimate electronic music event, even topping Ultra or TommorrowLand, but you truly will not understand unless you get the chance to be on the ship. So I suggest you start saving your pennies for next year, because it was not cheap, but it was 100% worth it.

Below you will find shitty iPhone pictures we took on Day 3, but also some professional photos as well. If any photographers wish to have their picture taken down, please contact us asap and your request will be fulfilled.